(A/N: Because I watch far too much anime, I'm speculating that the insides of Diablo look very much like the insides of an Eva, from Neon Genesis Evangelion (Because Diablo reminds me of Eva Unit 2). If you've seen the series, picture something like that, please. )
For a long time, he sat there in what seemed to be purposeful meditation, cross-legged, and not bothered by the silence around him. A pale green glow emanating from the runes projected on his left hand changed intensity as the different individual runes changed shape, like they had some kind of meaning. Ravendor was reading them carefully, a continuing status report on the golem's life support system. He needed to wait for a change in the machine's slumber, or a flicker of it's AI activity. Then, he could sense it's complete energy level, and change it so that the machine might properly activate again. It was all a matter of patience. Unfortunately, Ravendor was hardly a patient man.
Luck came through for him and the runes at last matched up in a pattern that he seemed to be pleased with, the dark-haired man rising to his feet and smiling in a satisfied manner. He banished the runes and looked to the golem in front of him, sleeping without a care in the world. That was going to change. Ravendor raised his arms, like he was going to embrace an object in the sky that was currently intangible. His smile became extremely sinister, hiding an unseen intent.
"It is time! Spawn of demons, and the child of man! Diablo, Crimson Hellstorm! The last bearer of the Word of God has come! I am here, and I claim my right!" He said this in a way that would have made the deceased Prophets themselves proud, his aura growing visible in the process. It had a faint silver lining to stand out in the darkness, and using it, Ravendor rose several feet into the air, placing his hands in his pockets. "For ten years I have sought your power, at first, for no reason other than financial gain, but now…" He drifted over to the golem's head, chuckling in remembrance. "I have a better use for you. There is no need to remain in this place forever, to rot away with no purpose. I will give you a purpose. I will give you the power source that I have promised you."
He landed on the base of Diablo's spine, covered with a thick layer of scarlet red armor. The color was so vibrant, so much like spilt blood. Ravendor's aura faded, and his gravity went back to normal, the dark-haired man kneeling to search the armor for a seam, a slight crack in the defenses that made it nearly vulnerable. "That power source," He continued, talking to the golem like it was a person, "It is I. I am a construct in myself, that facet is what we both share. I will share my power, whatever I have left of it, with you." He found the seam he was looking for. "Oh, here it is." He added, locating the doorway to Diablo's insides. Hooking his fingers around the metal, he pulled for a long while and got absolutely nowhere, until he realized he was being stupid and switched to his claw, levering up the door much more easily this time.
The removal of the entry hatch caused a burst of incredibly stale air to waft out through the opening and disperse in the greater area, having been trapped for almost a thousand years. Inside was an intense pitch blackness that almost had a kind of solidity in it's shade, all the energy and power of Diablo had been wisely shut down. This allowed the golem to survive to the present day, in a sort of cryogenic sleep that kept it's consciousness intact. Ravendor dropped down through the hatch and entered the darkness, his feet hitting a cool metal floor. Finding the rungs built into Diablo's inner shell, he climbed up a few of them so that he could reach up out of the entrance and close up the hatch, sealing himself inside. Now it was so dark that even he needed a light, and so he fumbled almost blindly around for the master control panel built in somewhere nearby. His fingers brushed a button amongst many and the emergency energy supply slowly flowed into life, the darkness brightening into a dim light.
Diablo's insides held a distinct similarity to the inside of Lombardia's shell, the two pieces of elaborate machinery probably built or designed in their own image. Ravendor didn't know enough about history to know for certain, but this golem was vastly ancient, almost indescribably so. And yet, the technology used to power it was centuries ahead of any modern work, it was truly mind-boggling to think about. The dark-haired man hid his eyes from the emergence of the light, needing time to let his vision shift from night to twilight. A few seconds flowed by and he removed his arm from his face, inspecting the core of Diablo's being.
It was plated with a pale whitish metal that had attained a pale creamy color from years of disuse, and in the center of the room, there was a control chair complete with some kind of restraint for the pilot, and around that, the master controls. They vaguely reminded him of the terminals he had used in Yggdrasil years ago, though the writing on the buttons were in a language he couldn't understand. The chamber smelt like a museum, old and decrepit. Ravendor turned around and inspected the inner plates of metal, like the armor on the outside, but much thinner and weaker. The air was close and encouraged silence, so when he saw an amount of scratched writing on the shell, he didn't dare speak a word. Carefully, he set his dark claw against the metal and pressed down with a small amount of force, trying to make a similar mark. The wall did not yield to his influence, and he gave up rather quickly, not wanting to harm the golem from the inside. He was just curious, that was all. Now, about the writing, that was interesting.
They won't get in the way of my ambition! It's death to the humans, or BUST!
-- Zed
"Ah, so it was somebody named Zed who once commanded this monstrosity, against a team of humans, no less. How interesting." Ravendor said softly, running a finger down the angular branches of writing. It looked like the words had been carved in by a sword stroke, or some other sharp object. He wondered idly if this 'Zed' person had managed to win? In any case, it no longer mattered, and he walked to the pilot's seat, inspecting it with intrigue. Ravendor had a basic idea on how the logistics of a golem worked, those years spent working for the Council of Seven had not been wasted, but the specifics still needed to be figured out. He would do that now, for starters, by getting into the pilot's seat.
The moment Ravendor sat down and placed both hands onto the control orbs at the end of each armrest, some kind of liquid metal flowed out of an unknown cavity, solidifying around his arms, legs and midsection, formidable restraints. The drifter was startled for a moment, but realized their purpose and allowed himself to be captured and bound, becoming linked to Diablo's neural net through the workings. His spirit, in the same way an ARM was handled, manipulated the giant creature like a personalized weapon, with intent and purpose. Sighing, he lost feeling in his original body and became aware of the golem's own nervous system, his consciousness halfway transferred to the larger, more powerful body. Stuck in-between, he had influence over both shells. Gently leaning his head back against the headrest of the chair, the runes appeared along his arms again and he used the magic to transfer his own power into the golem's backup supply, draining one body and strengthening the other. There. Now, he should be able to move.
…This reminds me of before… During the time… when I woke up… No, I must not think about that…
Clenching his left hand gently, slowly, so each muscle movement could be individually checked and accounted for, Ravendor felt that outside, the golem's body powered itself into life and imitated his motion with perfect precision, the alloys squeaking a little from a tiny bit of rust. That sound soon died down as the machine got better used to the motion, and a low hum of a warming engine vibrated through the caverns. Diablo groaned, coming back from his deep slumber, and Ravendor pushed the unwanted consciousness back into the corner of Diablo's databanks, overwriting the AI so that only he could command. He gritted his teeth as the luminosity of his runes increased, and he hacked directly into the mainframe via the uplink, changing the nerve endings to coincide with his own. A screen appeared in the wall, melting out of the metal shell of the golem's armor, and it flashed to life, showing an image of the cavern outside. Binary ran across the screen, ever changing, until the numbers seemed to make some sort of match, changing their color to red and vanishing. The true soul of Diablo had gone silent, and Ravendor had taken over.
The monster stood up with moderate effort, head sweeping the high roof and sparks flying from it's rusted joints. Diablo leaned back slightly and bellowed, it's already crimson red armor heating up from it's token element, pure punishing fire. Smoke seemed to come off it's body, and the temperature rapidly increased. Like a small earthquake in itself, it stepped forward, rocks from the ceiling falling down from the vibration. Ravendor, only half aware of his weaker body, smiled with satisfaction and freed one arm from the restraints, the limb passing through the inconsistent metal like warm candle wax and reaching into an inner pocket of his jacket, removing something that looked like a small conch seashell, or a weird-looking potato. It was a woodwind ocarina, very old, and completely foreign. He truly had no idea how to use it, but…
"Ancestor Cecilia Adlehyde once used this instrument to move a golem's location. I inherited her abilities of control, however I am not sure if this will work for myself too. The royal bloodline had weakened throughout the centuries, I probably am not powerful enough, but I shall try anyway." He put the mouthpiece of the ocarina to his lips, covered a few holes in the body randomly with a few fingers, and breathed through the shaft, hoping to receive a sound for his efforts. A low tone echoed in the control chamber, not beautiful or enchanting, but not horrible on the ears. It was a start, at least. Persevering, he opened more holes and played a second note, higher in pitch and length, then, he lowered the note once more and tried for a slower sound, trying to hit the correct tune to make the golem move.
He practiced for nearly ten minutes on the odd musical instrument, attempting to get the sound right. A few times, he made an error and the noise was no better than nails on a chalkboard, but at the same time, he managed to make some notes that sounded strangely beautiful, filled with melancholy. He memorized exactly what he had done with those tries and rearranged them into a semi-coherent order, the beginnings of a tune starting to emerge. He got slightly better and toyed with the string of music, if he were not in a more important situation, it would have been interesting to see what kind of music he could compose. But for now, this was all he needed.
Ravendor waited for the quiet echoes of the ocarina to die down before he would use it again, needing absolute silence. Now, he reactivated Diablo's uplink and boosted the output of it's auditory unit to full, loosening his grasp on the captured AI so that it could hear and respond. He played the tune slowly and meticulously, trying his best not to make a mistake. All in all, he did not too bad for an absolute amateur, and when he finally went quiet, he somehow got the message that it had done the job. The giant groaned once more and he put the instrument away again, setting himself properly back into place. It was now time, this shell would protect him until his metamorphosis was complete, like a cocoon protects a pupa, and soon, he would be ready to destroy all, to destroy him, to destroy Clive Winslett.
The ground underneath slowly swallowed Diablo with an endless hunger, a response to the magic of the ocarina, and the golem and it's master disappeared into the earth, leaving the cradle of the fire giant. Ravendor's awareness slipped away as the magic continued to work, relying on the uplink to keep him in stasis just like a golem's sleep. Discarding his weak fleshy body for the moment, he obtained a shell of metal, fire, and ancient strength. The power he felt was enormous, the energy he had supplied doubling by almost a hundred fold. He was slightly rusted, but he could get over that. Yes, this was power. Unimaginable power.
He and the Crimson Hellstorm were one.
xxx
They aimed their ARMs into the dark passageway in front of them, two pistols, a machine gun, a shotgun, and a rifle. After a bit of strained hearing, the group had come to a conclusion based on Catherine's notion, that something was coming. Now, they could all hear footsteps in the dark, uneven, even a little stumbling, but that did not make them any more confident. Gallows laughed nervously. "You don't reckon it's gonna be Kaitlyn, eh?" He asked, looking to the others. Virginia shook her head, and shot him a negative gaze, the footsteps sounded too loud to be coming from a small child. Jet said something that described Gallows's mental capacity and also made the two girls blush, a little too vulgar to be repeated. The Baskar winced, and then was silent.
Catherine became the negotiator. "Whoever is there, come out now with your hands up! You have several ARMs here waiting for you, so I advise that you obey my commands! If this is a bandit, then prepare to be captured!" Her weapon cocked and ready to fire, she could have sworn that she had heard a quiet growl when the word 'Bandit' had been mentioned, and she took a step back, unnerved. Was this going to be a bandit, or some kind of monster? She was about to find out.
A figure emerged from the shadows, hunched over a little and splashed with bandit blood, just beginning to dry. It's claws clenched and unclenched from tense energy, it's breath cold and frosty, a presence that seemed to radiate evil intent. It's tail waved back and forth in a manner that almost made the creature look amused by the new people in front of it, cocking it's head to one side slightly. It looked curious, as if it had not found exactly what it was expecting. A dirty red jacket hung off the creature's misshapen frame, ripped and torn in certain spots, but giving an indicator of who this creature precisely was. Slowly, Catherine shouldered her weapon, in utter disbelief.
"The next time you see me, be prepared to acknowledge the inevitable without reservation. I know you are strong enough to do so…"
Was this what he had been talking about? Was this what he was so afraid of, of what he would become? Catherine felt weak on the inside, her heart seemed to be failing to a weak little flutter. This was, without a shadow of a doubt, her husband. The description matched perfectly, a wolfin man stained in blood. Yes, this was it. The murderer, the monster, the demon. He looked even worse than what Catherine ever could have imagined, and it froze her, deep inside.
"What the heck is that?" Gallows exclaimed.
"Shut up!" Jet scolded, "You'll provoke it- him!" Clive took a small step back, like he was trying to widen the playing field, appraising them silently. The entire Maxwell Gang endured the torture of staying perfectly still, the slightest move could trigger an unwanted response. This is what the moon had done to Clive, made him into no more than a beast. Could medicine cure this? Could anything bring a person back from something so horrible?
Then, the worst thing that could ever possibly happen in the history of bad coincidences occurred. Somewhere, a Guardian was probably laughing at this event.
Gallows sneezed.
It was not a regular kind of sneeze either. If the Baskar had not suddenly held his hands out of his face, he probably would have blown all of his brains out through his nose, so powerful the force was. It nearly echoed off the walls, and Virginia's heart thought it would explode in her chest from the sound, looking to Clive to see his reaction. It was a bad one. He attacked, and headed straight for the catalyst, claws and teeth gleaming and deadly.
Gallows and Clive locked themselves into a battle of brute strength, hands and claws braced and straining against shoulder, the human and the lycan struggling for victory. Sweat stood out on Gallows's skin as he fought to stay in the competition, the muscles in his arms aching and crying out for more oxygen from the pressure. The Baskar priest dug his heels as deeply as possible into a loose patch of dirt underneath him, which helped him some, but only prolonged his inevitable defeat. Gallows was tiring, and Clive was not. The lycan's steady glare was augmented by it's deep crimson glow, it seemed to drain Gallows's strength straight from his body, slowly weakening his resistance. He lost ground and was gradually pushed into the wall, feeling the hard and abrasive surface pressing into his back. Clive snarled and snapped at his neck, missing by only a few short centimeters. Gallows called on hidden energy stores and managed to push his way away from the wall, grunting as he did so. This was not over yet.
Making his move, Jet tightened his grip on the airget-lamh and jumped onto Clive, moving the body of the weapon so that it was under Clive's throat and pressing down against his windpipe, both hands holding the weapon firmly on either side. The result was like a loose garrote as Jet put his weight into the attempt, forcing Clive to let go. The lycan yelped from the sudden pressure around his neck and bit his claws deeply into Gallows's unprotected flesh, causing cuts, but no major wounds. Ripping them out again, the claws flew to grapple clumsily with the machine gun near his neck, and Clive finally got a plan into his head and he slammed himself backwards into a wall. With Jet hanging off his back, the silver-haired boy was like a cushion between the rock and the lycan's body, all the wind being knocked out of his lungs. Jet groaned and lost the handhold on his weapon, sliding off and onto the floor. He breathed raggedly to get more air back into his system, his vision greyed around the edges.
The Baskar, ignoring his bleeding shoulders and holding onto his Coyote ARM by the end of it's handle, ran over to Clive again and smacked the length of the weapon's barrel across his face, bracing himself and then tackling the full force of his body into the monster's body, trying to bring him down. Clive reeled from the hit and uttered a shocked bark when he suddenly met the ground with a loud slam. He recovered his wits after a second of disorientation and slashed at Gallows's body, parried by a blocking move by the priest's own ARM. A hideous scraping sound pierced the air, metal against claw, but no damage was actually done. Glad of his great muscular weight, Gallows tried his best to pin down the snarling lycan, both hands on Clive's forearms to hold down the claws.
Virginia rushed to Jet's side and hauled the boy up into a sitting position, his face pale from the sudden shock in his nervous system. He would receive bruises, but all that was left was just a small amount of shock. He could recover from that with no sweat, he just needed a little bit of time. "Jet!" Virginia cried, shaking him, "C'mon, get up! You have to stand and fight!" The android's lavender-coloured eyes slowly opened and they immediately shifted back into his role and duty, to fight off the monster that was threatening his friend's life. Rubbing his stomach gently, Jet rose and left Virginia's arms, shaking the lingering feeling of confusion from his mind. He picked up the airget-lamh, and now he was back.
Targeting the spot where the action was now transpiring, he ran back to it with a warrior's calm. "Hey Gallows!" He yelled as Clive managed to lean up and snap once more at Gallows's face, growling and snarling with frustration. "Whatever you do, don't let him bite you! We don't need two of these damn things running around on us!"
"That's fucking easy for you to say!" He retorted loudly, barely missing the attack that time. He couldn't just hold Clive down like this forever, where the hell was Catherine and that medicine? They needed it now! He risked a glance around him, spotting the woman a little way away and looking mesmerized by the scene unfolding around her. She still had not recovered from the initial shock received from seeing Clive for the first time, and now, she looked positively unreachable. "Catherine! Snap outta it- agh!" Clive took advantage of Gallows's change of thought and called forth a devastate arcana attack, the first time he had managed to cast magic in his lycan form. Blinded by the light, Gallows's hands unconsciously move to cover his eyes, removing the restraints and crying out from the pain. However, this pain was localized only in the nerves in his eyes, and for some reason Clive had refrained from hurting Gallows in a magical way, just seeking a diversion.
He kicked the Baskar away and hopped up to his feet with lightning speed, slamming Gallows up against the wall once more. Like Romero, Clive was intent on tearing the priest's throat out. Hoping to knock out the lycan magically, Gallows chanted a sleep arcana but watched with dismay as it dissolved into nothingness with seemingly no effect, cursing his misfortune. Now, he took a physical defensive and punched Clive directly in the stomach, powerful enough to knock a fully-grown man clear into unconsciousness, but he shouted in pain as the impact shot sharp pain up his arm, feeling like he had just struck a solid metal wall. Clive made a noise indicating that it had indeed hurt, but nowhere near enough as it should.
And then Virginia was immediately between them, her blue eyes narrowed and focussed, holding up her twin pistol ARMs. It was like she was in-between some kind of weird hug by the looks of it, while Clive was trying to pin Gallows against the wall, and the girl knew that she was totally vulnerable to one of Clive's bites at that very second. If he managed to take the initiative without her move being made, then Virginia was as good as dead. She took a terribly risky chance, but she knew that she had to just save her friends. "Oh Clive, I'm sorry." She said softly, reaching up with her Rapier EZ ARM, plated with a coating of pure silver and pressing it against Clive's muzzle, using it for it's composition, not it's function.
The silver burnt with a purifying fury into Clive's fur and skin underneath, making the monster howl in tortured agony and pull away, falling to the floor and curling up in pain, whimpering. Gasping, Gallows was freed and he rubbed the newly-formed cuts on his wrists from where Clive had held him down. Looking towards Virginia, the Baskar whistled in disbelief. "Whoa, I never would've thought of something like that! Ginny, you're a genius!" He winced, feeling his minor wounds and then sealing them with a heal arcana, the pain evaporating with a slight tingling feeling.
The drifter leader leant over Clive's body, the lycanthrope having gone silent and still, lightly clutching his injured nose. He was on his side and breathed softly, like a dog in the midst of sleep. Had that attack knocked him out? Virginia wasn't positive or not if silver could have such an effect on him, but it looked like it had. They must be in luck, she thought. In the meanwhile, Jet walked over to Catherine and grabbed the woman by the shoulders, shaking her roughly. "What the hell is the matter with you?!" He yelled, "When a monster comes straight at you, you fight, you don't just stand there like some kind of goddamn statue!" He glared at her with apathetic eyes, not noticing how vacant Catherine's own looked. "You're supposed to be some kind of veteran drifter? If you freeze on the battlefield again, you'll die!"
Catherine's voice was almost heartbreaking. "He's not there… I can't… I cannot feel him anywhere, his soul is gone… and now there is nothing else…" Her body went sort of limp, and the only reason she could stand now was because Jet was holding her up. "He is gone… I've lost everything…"
Virginia pushed Jet aside effortlessly, took a hold of Catherine, and sharply slapped her. "Give up now and he is dead! It's a shock to us all to see him like this, but keep it together! We can cure him! The antidote, Catherine, you can use it now." The older woman's eyes seemed to refocus on that statement of the facts, and she stood up properly, nodding. Carefully, she took out the antidote's case and smiled at Virginia, ignoring the sting of the girl's slap. She really had deserved it.
But when they turned back to Clive, everything had changed.
Gallows was lying unconscious on the floor, his body limp from a severe life drain arcana, near the borderline of physical termination. Twisted slightly, it looked like he had put up a silent fight until the very end. Clive, back to health from the Baskar's stolen energy, had Jet in a familiar arm-hold with one bloodied claw over the android's mouth to muffle out his cries for help, the scene and situation so similar to the incident at Westwood Station that it was not funny. "You… you were playing possum!" Virginia exclaimed, amazed at Clive's attempt to dredge up a plan. Was he thinking strategically, even as he was?
The lycan grinned, though he could speak no words, twisting Jet's arm back so that it was in the near breaking point, the boy closing his eyes tightly and shaking, showing exactly how much it hurt. There was a sickening crack, the sound of a bone popping out of it's socket, and Jet found some way to scream through the gag, going as pale as milk. His arm went limp and Clive let go, the limb flopping helplessly out of it's socket. Overwhelmed, Jet fainted, cursing his weakness.
"Jet!" Virginia cried, abandoning all reason and nearly throwing herself at Clive, raising her pistols to fire. Clive caught her hand and disarmed her swiftly by grabbing her wrists and hauling her sharply to the left, the weapons falling out of her hands without any trouble. Letting out a cry, she tried to struggle free but Clive bashed her against the wall, more gently than the other two men, but enough to knock her clean out of the action. Virginia landed on top of Jet, a few tears escaping her closed eyes. The Maxwell Gang had been defeated.
Clive growled and licked the blood off the tops of his claws, sizing up his last opponent, who stood there with her lips parted a little in stupefaction, her rifle ARM still hanging by the strap around her shoulder. She was in a state of disbelief. "Clive…" Catherine whispered, distantly. "Please… come back…"
He did not hear her, and then, he charged.